


From Me, With Love

by Yuzururu



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Lots of inner feelings in this one, M/M, but also kinda
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-08-31 08:58:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8572264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuzururu/pseuds/Yuzururu
Summary: It starts with emotions that confuse, and then feelings that don't make sense, like shivering in the middle of a sunny field in summer or suddenly humming unfamiliar songs, feeling sad when it's a happy occasion or having cravings for pork cutlet bowls. One thing for sure, both Victor and Yuuri are slowly realizing that they share their hearts with an unknown soulmate, and they are determined to find out who it is.  //Soulmates AU where emotions and physical feelings are shared, and sometimes their souls jump into each other's bodies, all in a messy attempt for their hearts to find each other.





	1. Mother Knows

Yuuri was struggling with the yukata, the sleeves of the traditional Japanese garb trailing behind him as he trotted around the room. It hung, fluttering and dragging, too large against his five-year-old body. Yuuri vaguely regrets insisting that he’s a big boy now and can put it on himself. He didn’t realize it would be so... _difficult_. But if he asked for help now, his big sister Mari would definitely laugh at him…

Huffing, Yuuri heaved at the heavy cloth and gave it another go. He slung it over his shoulders, the ends flapping and ungainly, and then he realized that he’d lost the string to tie it together around his waist. After another few seconds of fruitless fidgeting, he’d managed to get it relatively aligned with himself, but then he wasn’t sure if it was supposed to go all the way around his torso or if he was supposed to just huddle it over his head and hope for the best.

Yuuri pouted, sat down and eventually caved.

“Mama!” He cried. “Help me please, I’m stuck!”

Hiroko came bustling in with a cheery smile on her face. She brought her hand to her mouth when she saw how her son was entangled with the silk fabric. Glancing at Yuuri’s disgruntled grimace, she quickly wiped the smile off her face and knelt to look Yuuri in the eye.

“What part do you need help with, Yuuri?”

“Um,” Yuuri thought about it carefully. “Everything?”

Hiroko nodded. “Everything it is then. Turn around and hold your hands out.”

Yuuri did as she told. He felt the cloth being pulled off him, and relished the feeling of having full control of his limbs again.

“I’m going to put it on and tie it for you, alright?”

“Okay, mama,” Yuuri giggled when his mother’s hand settled gently around his neck as she pressed the fabric to his body. It tickled.

“Turn to face me, sweet. I’ll do the front ”

Yuuri spun on one foot, excited and obedient all at once. Hiroko laughed as Yuuri shuffled impatiently. “Stay still, Yuuri, we’re almost done!”

Her deft fingers threaded the cloth neatly into a small bow. Yuuri turned to admire it, trying not to fall over at the sudden imbalance of weight. Yuuri stroked his fingers over the child’s obi that his mother had tied for him. It was a smooth gray, unassuming but shimmering nonetheless, and it brought out the vibrancy of his actual yukata. He’d chosen his design just a few weeks before at the local tailor; the bright splashes of fireworks across a stretch of blue sky and little drifts of clouds coiling between the colorful sparks made him feel unbelievably happy. He was excited to see the actual fireworks at the festival, booming as they filled the sky.

Mari poked her head through the sliding door. “Are we ready to go yet?”

She grinned a little, seeing that Hiroko was busy patting down the lapels of Yuuri’s traditional dress. Yuuri stuck his tongue out at her before she could say anything, and then Hiroko straightened with a satisfied look on her face.

“Alright, let’s go, before the vendors run out of candied apples!”

Yuuri let out a gasp and Mari turned, her socked feet pattering down the hallway.

Hiroko reached for her son’s hand, and Yuuri’s small fingers met her halfway.

::x::

“Five minutes before the fireworks,” Toshiya runs a hand through his graying hair. Next to him, Mari was tugging on the hem of her father’s yukata, hanging off the cloth playfully and dragging her feet on the stone path. Toshiya, ever the patient man, picks his daughter up and swings her onto his tired shoulders, bouncing her up above the crowd and grinning at her cries of joy. “Is this a good view for you?”

“Yes!” Mari cheers. “Higher!”

Hiroko pauses to look at Mari, concern creasing her brow, and that’s when it happens.

Yuuri’s small hand pulls at her fingers. Hiroko shifts, seeing that Yuuri had stumbled.

Yuuri turns his face upwards to look at her, and his eyes were a brilliant blue instead of his usual, warm brown.

Hiroko startles. _What-..._ her mind is befuddled, and it races through threads of explanation before finally latching to one. _It’s soul-switching,_ she thinks, incredulous with the realization. It’s rare in this world but not unheard of, a phenomenon that scientists have studied for years now. Soulmates are extraordinary and almost supernatural in their existence; unique incidences where two hearts decide that they will find each other at all cost. She never thought that it would happen to her son, and a part of her feels almost sad that it did; she would’ve liked Yuuri to experience love as she had, to love the wrong people, to go through hurt that would make her stronger, and then to finally find the right one.

But a part of her warms to the idea. It’s his first soul-switch, and it’ll be the first of many. Hiroko’s honestly surprised that it happened so smoothly, so quickly and so completely; switches, when they happen, are usually slow. First, emotions trickle over, and then the full switching begins.

And full switching happens usually only when there are shared emotions from both sides.

Her son and his soulmate must share an incredible bond.

Hiroko tightens her grip and looks into those tell-tale eyes. The hand she’s holding; it at once belongs to Yuuri and doesn’t, and a flutter of panic drifts through her heart. She clamps down on it, in a way that only mothers can, and turns to the not-Yuuri.

“Are you okay?” Hiroko asks softly.

The not-Yuuri nods, a little shaky. Hiroko strokes the back of the child’s hand.

Hiroko opens her mouth to ask the name of her son’s soulmate, and then thinks better of it. That’s something for Yuuri to figure out, not for her to pry into. She’s still a little shaken by how blue their eyes are, and how they seem to contrast so with Yuuri’s brown hair.

“Do you still want to hold my hand?” She asks.

Not-Yuuri nods again, pressing into her side hesitantly. _They must be scared,_ Hiroko thinks. _And my Yuuri must be scared to, in an unknown place with unknown people…_

But she can only take care of one child at a time, so she gives the small hand a reassuring squeeze.

“We’re going to watch the fireworks together. Do you want to join us?”

::x::

Victor Nikiforov was in choir class thirty minutes ago.

The new choir teacher is strict, a man in his late thirties, already fast balding with the stress of dealing with classes of disobedient, nine-year-old children.

“Quiet down!” The man hisses, tapping his conductor’s baton against one of the music stands propped at the front of the room. The chattering spluttered to a halt, only a few brave whispers drifting from the back of the room. Victor himself was standing near the front, his back straight and his eyes steady on the sheet music in front of him. He liked singing, he really did. It’s just hard and scary, sometimes, when the teacher is looking at him and expecting him to get it perfectly, and he knows that his voice didn’t hit the right note. He hated disappointing people, hated seeing them frown at his performances.

“One verse at a time,” The teacher says, tapping out the rhythm with the stick. “A one, and a two- starting with you, Alexei.”

The first of his classmate starts to sing. They were learning a new song today, an old ballad about the cold of the Russian winter. It’s a lilting, melodic song, and it reminds Victor of the birds that sing outside his window every morning, tapping their small feet on the branches of the old tree in his backyard.

He smiles, and the happiness fills his heart with every swell of the note. He couldn’t wait to sing, couldn’t wait to show off his own voice.

Alexei finishes, and the song travels swiftly through the room. Each child picks it up, line after line, only faltering once or twice, but the teacher is quick to set them back on track. Victor all but bounces in his place, the excitement winding his heart up like a key being wound in a clockwork toy. And finally, all eyes are on him, and he opens his mouth-

And he’s looking at a stranger, his fingers trapped in her hand.

The lyrics of the ballad drift aimlessly through his head, but no sound comes out of his mouth.

Victor shivers.

The woman speaks to him in a language that he is not familiar with, but her tone is soft and patient and it reminds him of his favorite homeroom teacher, Miss Morov. Victor feels a little calmer, so he nods, because it seems like the right thing to do.

The woman makes a pleased noise and asks him another question, gesturing to their linked hands. Victor nodded again, because he was a little scared that if he let go, he would be swept away in this unfamiliar crowd, in an unfamiliar place, and he would never find his way home again. He tries his hardest not to think scary thoughts and instead focuses on the little squeeze of reassurance that he gets from the kindly woman. As long as he continues holding her hand, he thinks maybe he’ll be okay. Later, he’ll think about how he can go home, but for now…

The woman asks another question. When he turns to look at her blankly, she gestures up towards the sky, and the points to the pictures of fireworks on the strange, heavy clothes that he’s wearing.

Victor smooths a hand over the pictures. He’s never seen fireworks before, except for on television.

It would be nice if he could see them in person, just this once.

::x::

Katsuki Yuuri is really looking forward to the fireworks.

So when he finds himself standing in an unfamiliar classroom, brushing silver hair out of his eyes and staring at an angry looking man, he’s cowed into a trembling silence. The person next to him finishes singing the last few bars of some foreign song, and then the classroom falls silent.

There’s a beat of uncertain quiet. Murmurs start at the back of the class, but he doesn’t understand what they’re saying.

The man growls something and clinks his baton loudly against the metal of a music stand, and Yuuri decides that the silence is unbearable and he has to sing.

He blinks and opens his mouth, letting the familiar tune of a Japanese lullaby that his mother would sing to him wash over the room. It was strange, hearing it in a voice that wasn’t his own, but the song itself anchored his panicky heart.

It was the song of the town that he grew up in, about how fishermen would drift out onto the early waves to catch fish, about how the children would play in the sand on the beach, about how fathers would come home late and weary, but ready to show love to the family. Yuuri didn’t understand half of the lyrics in the song, but he loved it when his mother sang it, because the melody was slow but sure, steady like his family’s support for him. It made him a little less scared of the monsters in the closet or the boogie man under his bed and instead made him think of his mother smiling and cooking in the kitchen, his sister building a snowman with him in the winter, his father’s laugh when they watched football together.

He got to the end of the verse, faltered and drifted off. And with the silence ringing in his ears, he could hear something far off in the distance, muffled and hazy like a forgotten memory, but undeniable and getting louder; a steady _boom, boom, boom_ like the sound of his beating heart-

And suddenly, he was back, staring up at the sky as flowers of light bloomed bright against the night, cradled in his mother’s lap. She’s singing the lullaby softly, stroking his hair and smiling down at him.

“Welcome back, Yuuri,” She whispered, kissing him on the forehead. Yuuri leans into the kiss and feels something strange welling up inside him, and realizes that he’s missing the voice that sang the lullaby, the beautiful one that came out of his mouth when he was singing in front of the unknown class.

He wonders if he'll ever hear it again. 

::x::

Back in the classroom in Russia, Victor Nikiforov hums the tune to a Japanese lullaby and closes his blue eyes to remember the beauty of the fireworks that he hopes to see again someday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm jumping onto this bandwagon of the ever-growing soulmate corner of YoI AUs! Hope you all enjoy~


	2. Icy Palms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skating season is upon him, and unintentionally, Victor foists some of his nervousness upon Yuuri through their connection. He's thirteen, nervous yet ready to please an international audience. 
> 
> Yuuri, meanwhile, is a very small, confused child with an irrational craving for Russian soup.

He could hear the muffled voices of the crowd outside. The roars, the cheers and the clapping...the noise rose and fell in his ears like cresting waves threatening to drown his thoughts. His chest felt cinched. Pressure and stress wrapped itself around his rib-cage. It was hard to breath.

Victor pushed a strand of long hair back from his face, and exhaled slowly.

Besides him, Yakov was gazing stonily at the entrance to the rink. Victor could tell by the impassive look on the man’s face that he was trying to gauge their competition from the sounds of the crowd. Whenever the cacophony of the masses outside would swell with excitement, Yakov would flex his hand like he was loosening his wrist, flicking off any lingering worries.

When Victor turned his face upwards in search of comfort, Yakov only looked down blankly and lay a heavy hand on Victor’s shoulder. It was the only kind of reassurance that Victor’s strict coach knew how to give. Victor himself knew that Yakov believed in his abilities. They had trained together for years now, after all, and Yakov, though rather loud and relentless in his teaching methods, had been nothing but a good coach to him. But in this moment, trapped between the quiet of the preparation room and listening to the muffled roars of the audience that he would have to please just outside outside....with nothing but his thoughts running through his mind a mile a minute to occupy him, Victor wished that there was something a little more from his silent coach.

It was his first international junior competition, after all. The first time he would take to the ice in front of so many spectators, fighting with a multitude of other young talents for the gold medal...Victor had trained hard for this, he knew it. He _knew_ he was good enough to on the tallest block of the podium, but it was hard not to stop all the ‘what ifs’ that scuttled through his brain.

“Victor Nikiforov,” One of the program coordinators strode towards him.

_What if I fall on the ice?_

Victor stood, stiffly, and Yakov’s hand was brushed aside.

_What if I forget part of my program? Mess up on the triple combo near the end?_

“You’re on in five minutes. Are you ready?” The program coordinator smiled kindly at him.

_What if I lose?_

Victor’s family was sitting there, somewhere in the front rows of the arena. His mother and father would be watching, tucked into the humming throng of the excited audience, feeling the buzz of the tension and energy in the air. He could picture his father, sitting back in his chair with an easy, proud smile, his gray hair combed back. His mother would be scouring the competitors, leaning forward and fixing her sharp blue eyes on the rink, looking for the elusive flash of bright purple that was his chosen costume.

He would hate to disappoint them.

“Victor?” The program coordinator was glancing around worriedly. There would be points deducted for lateness.

Victor took a deep breath. “Yes, I’m ready.”

::x::

The locker room of the Ice Castle was dark.

Yuuri spent two minutes edging along the wall looking for the light switch, inching carefully along in his rental skates, before finally finding the plastic knob. Flipping it upwards, he squinted as his eyes adjusted to the flicker flood of florescent lights.

Throwing his puppy-print bag on the nearest bench, Yuuri sat with a sigh.

He had finished practice for the day and could feel the weariness of today’s practice pressing down on his young joints. He had been practicing his jumps, throwing himself in the air as fearlessly as only a child could. He grudgingly realized that Takeshi kind of helped take his fear of falling on the ice away. The larger boy spent so much time ramming him into the sides and tripping him up that Yuuri no longer felt the sting of his palms meeting the ice.

He rolled his shoulders before leaning down to untie his skates.

As his fingers worked deftly at the tight knots, he felt a chill run down his spine.

Sitting up, Yuuri blinked at the empty room.

“Who’s there?” He called. He sounded stupid; his own voice was high and squeaky and full of fear. But still, he couldn’t for the life of him shake off the feeling that somebody was with him in this very moment.

There was no answer, of course. _Because there’s nobody there, dummy._ Yuuri bent his head to turn his attention back to his skates when it happened again. Another shivering cold, like someone had slipped an ice cube down the back of his shirt, and it was sluggishly making its way down the small of his back.

Yuuri lifted his head again. “Um!” He tried. “Hello?”

Still no answer. He sat there, in the silence, listening to the hum of the electricity crossing the wires in the ceiling above him. Waiting, perhaps, for something to answer him. Yuuri didn’t believe in ghosts; Mari had told him so many scary stories, but every time he asked his mom about it, she would chuckled and tell him that Mari was just joking with him. He wasn’t so sure now, because he could feel something weird fluttering in his chest. It felt like his heart was a glass jar filled with butterflies; he could feel their little wings beat frantically as they struggled to free themselves.

The cold slowly spread through his body, from his back down to this stomach and then to the tips of his fingers. Confused, Yuuri pressed his fingers into his armpits to try and warm them. He worked his skates loose and slipped into his running shoes, jogging on the spot. It felt to him like he was-

::x::

Victor took to the rink.

The cold of the chilled room followed his every movement. He glided down the length of the ice, feeling the audience turn as a collective whole to watch him. The cheers for the previous competitor slowly dulled to a murmur. They were nothing but echoes of an memorable performance.

It was Victor’s turn to make a mark.

Victor heard them announce his name, so he pressed onwards towards the center of the rink, waving his arms and leaning from the waist to stretch out any last kinks. His hair, tucked into a neat ponytail, fluttered out behind him in a spray of gray.

He got into his starting position. His heart was starting to hurt from the immense pressure of performing well. What would he do if he slipped and fell? Would the audience start to boo him? He’d gone to smaller, local competitions before, but nothing of this scale. The room felt like it was holding its breath, waiting for him to make a move.

 _You know the program. You practiced….why does the room have to be so cold?_ Victor felt like he was frozen in the moment, in his starting position, his arms out by his side and shaking. The cold was a tendril of fear that snaked down his back, spreading throughout his entire body, down to his stomach and then to the tips of his fingers.

He shivered.

And as the notes of his chosen song started to filter into the arena, Victor started to move.

::x::

“Yuuri! You’re still here?”

Yuuko had poked her head into the male changing room.

Yuuri paused from where he was struggling to pull on a larger jacket. “Yuu-chan!”

Yuuko frowned. She was in a thin sweater and running tights, her workout gear slung casually over her slim shoulders. “Are you cold?”

“Yes,” Yuuri’s teeth was chattering. The cold just didn’t make sense! The doors to the rink were closed for a while now, and Yuuri had put on layers upon layers. It was early March in Hasetsu, so sure, it might be a little chillier than the summer months, but still...

It was getting hard to pull on the jacket and rub his arms at the same time, but no matter what Yuuri did, the cold persisted. He was half tempted to run a lap around the changing room, to see if that could get his blood flowing.

Yuuko was saying something to him, so Yuuri turned to face her.

 _Weird._ It felt as if Yuuko was speaking to him through a thick glass wall. He could see her lips moving, but he couldn’t hear her at all. There was a thundering noise in his ear, like waves crashing against a rocky beach. It took him a confusing while to place it, but in his mind, it almost sounded like the dull roar of a crowd cheering. Like the constant background noise in all the Olympic skating videos that Yuuko would play for him on the internet. An excited audience, waving their banners and calling the names of their idols out on the ice. Yuuri had often imagined this kind of noise in response to him landing one of his jumps, Yuuko among them with a blush on her face.

_Wouldn’t it be nice for people to watch me skate?_

Yuuri’s heart jumped at the thought.

 _When I land all those jumps...wouldn’t it be nice if people were watching?_ Right now, he was working hard on them because he knew that Yuuko was watching, and he wanted her to see whenever he was able to launch himself into the air and just float, gracefully, as if he was a bird flying in the sky. Yuuko always cheered him on whenever he did something awesome.

Yuuri practiced because he loved ice skating. He practiced because he wanted to impress Yuuko. But right now, clearer than ever, Yuuri yearned to skate in front of a real audience.

Just like that, warmth blossomed in his limbs, and he felt like _dancing._

::x::

 _Fireworks._ Victor latched onto the image that popped into his head, of the fireworks that he saw three years ago. There had been many moments when he would find himself yearning to go back to that point in time, to be sitting under a tree with a crowd, gazing up at the sky and waiting for brilliance to explode into existence. Back then, he was a mere spectator, just one in many of a crowd of people with expectations, not someone performing.

There was something familiar about this moment, which calmed his staccato heart a little. It was a small feeling, a yearning to do something great, an excitement that built up in his mind and pushed him to do better, skate faster, turn tighter. A stray thought floated into his mind: _When I land all those jumps...wouldn’t it be nice if people were watching?_  

And people _are_ watching.

Perhaps it was the thundering crowd in the background reminding him of the _boom, boom_ of the fire flowers opening in the sky. Even though his body felt stiff with his fear of failure, something warm was spreading through his limbs.

He began to move more freely, more elegantly.

_I’m skating in front of a real audience. It’s time to surprise them._

His first jump was coming up; it was supposed to be a triple axel, to wow the crowd and get them going while also giving him an edge in energy by putting all his most difficult jumps first. But Victor didn’t want to be so predictable.

Instead, he settled for a triple loop, tensing his muscles and waiting for the queue from the music before leaping into the air. He hung there, suspended for a giddy second, the world blurring by him in a rush of color and noise, before he was back on the ice again…but he felt his foot twist underneath him and he was down on his knee, spinning out of control. He put his fingers out in a panic and his palm met the ice, and the shock of the frigid contact froze his mind.

He heard the audience gasp.

::x::

Yuuri was putting the larger jacket into his duffle bag when the cold hit again.

Yuuko had gone on ahead because she was having dinner at the Nishigori house with Takeshi. Even though the three of them usually hung out together after practice, Yuuri’s mom had reminded him that there would be an influx of guests at the onsen tonight due to the chillier weather, and Yuuri should be around to help out.

“Darn it!” Yuuri’s teeth chattered together. “Why is it so cold again?”

There was something stinging his right palm, so Yuuri pressed his hands together and rubbed, hard. It wasn’t helping; it felt as if he was pressing the heel of his hand into the ice rink. Frowning, Yuuri dug out his gloves and slipped them on. _This makes no sense!_ He rubbed his hands together again, to no avail.

 _Maybe I’m getting sick._ Yuuri unfolded the jacket and drew it around himself. It would be better to get home as soon as possible, so that he can ask Mari to check his temperature with the thermometer. If he was sick...his mom would definitely know what to do.

 _I bet mom’s making miso soup too._ It was a popular dish on a cold night. As he headed out of the rink, Yuuri kept that image in his mind; his family seated around the table, steaming bowls of soup in front of them. He would take little sips that would almost scald his tongue but not quite, and the soup would be warm. His cold hand wouldn’t bother him anymore because he could just wrap it around the bowl.

Yuuri jogged out of the Ice Castle’s main doors. He wanted to get home as soon as possible.

::x::

“Oh, what a fall! Can he- oh, there it is. Back on his feet again, that’s how you do it. Victor Nikiforov is lifting himself up and continuing on with his program, pushing through the disappointment of his fall. The thirteen year old Russian is one that many have anticipated seeing on ice this year. What a smooth performance so far...you can just see from that grace and poise that a small hiccup won’t be holding him back.”

The announcer’s voice was just an irritating buzz in the back of his mind. Victor focused on the program with a single-minded sharpness. He wanted to make his family proud, so that tonight when they sat around the dinner table, they would be able to talk about his performance on the ice without any shame.

 _I worked hard for this_.

And he could do this. He went into a spin, pulling it off flawlessly. The world tilted, dizzying but not unfamiliar, and the momentum drove him into sharp turns.

His second jump was a triple flip. He turned it into a triple flip double toe combo and positively glowed when the audience responded likewise.

Moving into his second half, Victor spent no time in playing on the momentum of his first half. The fall was nothing now, just the vague notion of deductions in the back of his mind. He danced on the ice, swirling in response to the music, flaring his hands just at the right moment to send him into mini spins and embellishments.

And when it was time for his triple axel (previously the triple loop, oh he could just see Yakov seething on the sidelines right now…), Victor straightened himself out and grinned wholeheartedly at the crowd. Just before he sprung himself into the air, his eyes found that of his mother, her mouth opened and cheering for him, calling his name.

She looked so proud of him.  

Victor jumped.

::x::

The cold disappeared on his walk back home, and Yuuri was practically sweating as he made his way down the dimly lit streets of Hasetsu. He didn’t feel so sick anymore, and the burning sensation in his palm was gone. Instead, there was an excitement that was rising in him, putting a spring in his every step.

Suddenly, his stomach dropped and his heart leapt to his throat. It felt as if he was soaring through the air. It was the very sensation he got when he was attempting a difficult jump. Shocked, Yuuri stumbled to a stop and patted his chest.

 _Was it something his body remembered but he didn’t?_ Yuuri shrugged, feeling vaguely happy. He must’ve accomplished something great, even though thinking back, he couldn’t recall anything out of the ordinary.

He must’ve landed a really cool jump at practice. Even though he couldn’t quite remember which one it was, he can probably brag to Mari about it.

Still, when he opened the door back home, he found himself doubting. What if he really was sick! That kind of feeling, cold and hot all of a sudden; that was the mark of a fever brewing, wasn’t it?

“I’m back! But, mom?” Yuuri called. “I think I’m sick.”

Hiroko was by his side immediately, fussing over him. She peeled the jacket off him, tutting when she saw that the back of his shirt was stained with sweat.

“Go take a warm bath, soak in the onsen for a little bit and then head to bed. I’ll bring you up some soup if you feel like eating later.”

Yuuri’s heart was beating hard, throwing itself against his ribcage. It wasn’t really a bad feeling, but it made Yuuri feel as if he would explode if he didn’t do anything, like yell really loud in happiness or jump really high in the air and throw his hands up in celebration. Yuuri was pretty sure sick people didn’t want to do any of those things, and it confused him. Shouldn’t he be wanting to lie in bed and drink his mother’s soup?

_And what am I celebrating anyway?_

::x::

Victor stood in the middle of the rink. On the middle podium.

The gold medal hung, heavy, around his neck.

When they announced his name, he squashed the urge to crow his victory and throw his hands up in the air. Instead, he smiled charismatically and lifted one hand to wave at the cheering people, his other hand laden with a bouquet of flowers that someone had handed him in admiration.

He was in the middle of the rink, but he didn’t feel cold at all. The pre-skate nerves that had raged within him seemed like a distant memory.

After the ceremony, he skated off the ice, past Yakov who clapped him lightly on the back in acknowledgement, and straight into the arms of his parents.

Victor’s father ruffled his hair. “That’s my son. What a beautiful routine! Look at you, you have so many fans already and you’re only thirteen.”

Victor grinned.

His mother leaned forward and adjusted the lapels of his jacket. Victor had left his jacket unzipped so that he could better show off his medal, but his mother pulled the zipper right up to his neck.“Be careful not to catch a cold now, you’re all sweaty and it’s chilly in here.

A comfortable silence, and then his mother pressed a light kiss to his forehead. “Hold your head high, Victor. You performed so well today.”

In the back of his mind, Victor dimly registered foreign noise. Distant chatter, of a family enjoying their meal, the warm lull of conversation in a full dining room. And above all, an undeniably strong craving for _soup._

::x::

Yuuri was pulling on his pajamas and ready to get tucked into bed. He was finally feeling like a normal human being. After the flip-flopping of weird nervous energy that he’d been feeling in the past hour, the quiet comfort of his own room was a relieving respite to the emotional turmoil of today. He still wasn’t even sure if all of that had happened, or if he was just dreaming stuff up.

There was a soft knock at the door before it slid open to reveal his mother with a concern written all over her face.

“How are you feeling? Do you want to eat anything?”

Yuuri shrugs. “Soup would be nice.” Truth be told, he was feeling quite nice, but it was also a treat to be fussed over. Maybe he’ll keep up the sick thing for a little bit longer, just until he was _sure_ that the hot and cold of his emotions weren’t leading up to a fever.

Hiroko smiled. “Soup it is, then. What do you prefer? Chicken soup or miso soup?”

“Borscht.” Yuuri replied.

_What._

His mother was staring at him.

“I meant miso!” Yuuri cried. “Miso soup! I don’t even- I don’t...our teacher was teaching us about...whatever it is I just said...today I think and it was interesting?”

“Alright,” Yuuri’s mother relents. “Get yourself warm and under the covers. I’ll bring it up on a tray.”

“Thanks, mama.” Yuuri suddenly felt very tired. He was craving beet and cabbages and flavors that he wasn’t all that familiar with. He wasn’t really sure what to make of his own feelings anymore. It was almost as if-

“Yuuri,” Hiroko says, her voice low and careful. “Do you feel weird sometimes?”

“Weird how?” Yuuri let out a little cough for good measure.

Hiroko’s expression softened. “Do you sometimes feel as if you’re two different people feeling different things in one body?”

Yuuri sat up abruptly. “How did you know?”

Hiroko sighed and sat at the edge of his bed. One hand came up to stroke his hair, calming him. Yuuri lay back down slowly, his eyes on his mother’s knowing look.

“I don’t want you to worry about it now,” Hiroko starts. “But there’s this thing called soulmates. Have you heard of it?”

Yuuri has heard of it; he’s seen it talked about in some of the magazines that Mari liked to read, or talked about in some of the manga that he’s reading. Yuuko has chatted about it to him once, something about being in love with someone forever? Yuuri couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept. He wasn’t even sure what it was like to be in love with someone. Maybe it was like...when he really likes Yuu-chan and how she’s always so nice to him?

“I have heard of this soulmate thingy, but I’m not sure what it means.”

“It means two people love each other very much,” Hiroko’s hand stilled. “But sometimes they don’t know each other yet, or they haven’t seen each other.”

Yuuri frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t, but it happens sometimes.”

Yuuri tilts his head, trying to wrap his mind around the concept. “But how can you love someone you don’t even know?”

Hiroko laughs. “The heart works in mysterious ways, Yuuri. When that happens, there might be weird things happening, like feeling weird things or...having emotions that you can’t explain...”

“I’m probably just a little sick, mama.” Yuuri laughed. “Training is hard!”

Hiroko smiled wearily, and for a brief second Yuuri had a nagging feeling that he'd said something wrong, or cut off a conversation that was meant to happen. But the moment passes quickly and Hiroko is patting his head again, telling him to lie down and rest up.

“When the time comes, you’ll know, Yuuri. Now rest up or you’ll be too sick to go to school tomorrow.”

::x::

Down in the kitchen of the Yutopia, Hiroko looks up how to make borscht and wonders if her son’s soulmate is Russian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday to our favorite pork cutlet bowl fatale that enthralls men! 
> 
> This chapter is me kind of fleshing out this soulmate bond that Yuuri and Victor have, particularly on the emotional front. Some of you have left some excellent questions for me to answer in the upcoming chapters, and I'm happy to take on the challenge. Sorry for the longer-ish wait, life got in the way and I didn't have time to write as much, but I hope you enjoy this chapter nonetheless.
> 
> No actual soul-switching in this chapter, but there'll be plenty of that to come... :)
> 
> Finally, thanks to everyone who left a comment, kudos and bookmark on this series! You guys are amazing and each and every single one of the comments you leave me makes my day!


	3. Sticks and Stones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor and Yuuri get a little, unconventional glimpse into each other's lives...

One warm, sleepy afternoon, Mari finds Yuuri curled up under his blankets and sniffling. _Strange,_ she thinks. Yuuri is usually running off to Minako’s or getting some extra practice in at the rink. Either that, or he’s reading up on soulmate switches at the library. After Hiroko had broke the news to him, Yuuri had been near obsessed with finding out who his soulmate is, even though his first switch had been a blurry and largely forgettable experience…

Whenever Hiroko was too busy to deal with her son’s new hobby, Yuuri turned to Mari. Yuuri’s talked Mari’s ear off about soulmates, and Mari hadn’t had the heart to tell him to stop chattering about something he obviously cared so much for. It warmed her heart, really, that there’s someone out there in the world destined to love her little brother, but she quietly swears to herself that nobody would love him more than she does.

 _“When will I get to switch again?”_ Yuuri would ask her. And Mari would shake her head and smile helplessly, because she wished she knew.

“Doing research under your covers again?” Mari pulls back the covers. “Yuuri, mom wants you to come help with cleaning the hot springs.”

Yuuri turns his back to her and presses his face deeper into the covers. Mari frowns and reaches out to tap him lightly on the shoulder. “Hey, does Minako know you’re slacking like this? Wow, imagine what she would say if I told her you’re going to miss her evening class because you didn’t want to help with the chores.”

“-m not feeling well,” Yuuri mumbles. “I’m not going to ballet class today.”

“But you love ballet class!” Mari frowns.

“I don’t want to go today,” Yuuri insists, still not facing her.

“Well, at least help out around the house!” Mari scowls. “You can’t expect mom to do all the work around here. We take turn doing chores for a reason, you know. It’s your turn to do the hot springs.”

Silence on his end. Yuuri sniffed once, the noise loud in the awkward tension that had congealed in the atmosphere between them. A pang of hurt scurried across Mari’s heart. _It’s not like I want to play the bad guy and drag you out of bed, little brother._ Instead, she tapped him lightly across his back again. “Hey, fine, if you’re not feeling well I’ll help you with it and you can take another nap before supper time.”

Yuuri brings his arm up to swipe across the back of his eyes, and Mari freezes. There was a little bruise there, flowering on the curve of his small wrist, the little smear of black and blue stark against Yuuri’s smooth, pale skin. There was another, the beginnings of a bigger one, peeking out from under his longsleeve shirt. Mari lets out an audible gasp and reaches for him, but Yuuri twists deftly away at the sound, landing off the bed on the balls of his feet, his back to her still.

“Yuu-”

“I’m going to help mom with the cleaning,” he told her, his voice sounding distant. And then he was bounding down the corridor with a shake of his head, Mari staring after him helplessly and wondering if she really was as useless an older sister as she felt.

::x::

“Hey Yakov,” Victor skated up to the boards and smiled at his coach. Yakov turned to him with a gruff noise of affirmation, not taking his eyes of Mila, who was executing a slightly off-center Biellmann spin. Victor tapped his fingers and hummed as Mila’s foot caught on something and she pitched forward with a squawk of surprise.

Victor cleared his throat. “Yakov, hey. Coach?”

“Mila!” Yakov boomed, and Victor turned to see that Mila had gone over to snark at Georgi instead of practicing her spin once more. Georgi himself wasn’t very responsive to Mila’s taunts; he was too busy trying to figure out how to add some kind of romantic, wailing proclamation to his routine. Between the three of them, Yakov’s hands were full. Feeling another lecture coming on, and desperate to get his question in before Yakov is well and truly gone (off on another rant that’ll last the whole evening practice session), Victor grabbed his coach’s sleeve and watched as Yakov stumbled, surprised, and turned reluctantly to face Russia’s rising star.

“Vitya!” Yakov sighed instead. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I wanted to ask you a question, you can yell at Mila later,” Victor pleaded.

Yakov groaned into his palm. “This better be good.”

“Do you remember-”

“If,” Yakov exhaled, closing his eyes and pinching his nose. “If you’re going to talk about that _one time_ where apparently someone else took over your body, I’m going to make you run through your program three times back to back. And you’re not going to have your rest day tomorrow.”

Victor coughed. “Well I was just...I just wanted to know more about soulmates. Someone told me that was a possible theory. Was wondering if you had some experience to-er...point me in the right direction?”

“Soulmates?” Whatever Yakov was previously expecting, it wasn’t this. “Did Georgi talk to you about this?”

To be fair, Georgi was the only one likely to talk about anything romantic at all, so _yes_ , Victor did go to Georgi first to talk about his outlandish experience with the fireworks. Georgi had told him all about soulmates and the so-called ‘body switching’, and had expressed tremendous jealousy that Victor might have a soulmate looking for him, somewhere out there.

“Soulmates are...unlikely.” Yakov glared and held up his hand to stop Victor, who’d opened his mouth to protest. “Soulmates are rare in this world, and most ‘soulmate switches’ are just celebrity stunts and stupid practical jokes. Internet videos or whatever. You’ve told me over and over that you experienced something crazy back when you were young and that you still feel it, or something. But now on the ice, I want you to focus on your own program. I don’t want you to think about anything else, not soulmates, not love, not _anything_ that can distract you. You might’ve made a name for yourself as Junior champion, but you won’t hold onto that title for long if you keep floundering about like this.”

Victor was quiet for a beat afterwards. He wasn’t sure which shocked him more; that Yakov seems to think soulmates are just some elaborate social media conspiracy, or that he’d just witness Yakov give him a serious talk with an actual suitably low volume. To be sure, it gave Yakov’s words a conviction that they wouldn’t otherwise have if he was bellowing instructions.

Blinking, Victor formulated half a response and was about to voice it, but Yakov had caught something out of the corner of his eye and was furrowing his brows and was stomping off to correct Georgi on form before Victor could get another word in.

Pouting, Victor decided to run through his program three times back to back just for the heck of it. And also to chase away the lingering distaste in his mind. He was going to prove Yakov wrong; about soulmates, about his position as Junior champion, about _love._

As he skated off to take position, a little pinch of pain found it’s way to his wrist. He brushed it off, absentmindedly dismissing the bruise already starting to form there. He must’ve banged it, or something, when he last botched a jump.

::x::

Yuuri leapt into the drained onsen with a single-minded determination. Ignoring his mother’s cheerful greeting, he set about attacking the dirty sides of the tub with a vengeance that surprised even himself. But no matter how hard he scrubbed and scraped and swept, the hurtful words were stuck in his mind, swirling and tormenting him.

_Where are you always off hiding, Yuuri? Are you scared of us? Don’t want to make friends? Oh right, you don’t have any!_

Yuuri’s lips twitched downwards.

_Oh, ballet? Isn’t that a girly sport? Why are you dancing, you’re a boy!_

Boys can dance too, Yuuri assured himself, even as his heart clenched and his hand tightened around the mop.

_Nobody likes you, crybaby Yuuri. You’re always off by yourself. You’re dumb and lonely. Nobody likes you!_

With a cry of frustration, Yuuri throw his mop across the tub. Behind him, Hiroko straightened, startled by her son’s sudden outburst. Yuuri turned away from her, flushing red in humiliation and anger and frustration, a hodge-podge of emotion welling up inside him and coiling deep in his stomach. He felt sick and heavy, and he was startled by the viciousness of his own anger as it stewed on the surface of his thoughts. _They’re so stupid,_ Yuuri thought. _They don’t even know how beautiful it is to dance ballet. They’re the ones who don’t know how hard I work to be good at dancing._

_They don’t even have soulmates, they’re the unlovable ones._

And then he realized he was starting to sound just like them.

“What’s wrong?” Yuuri’s mother had reached him and was pulling him into her warm embrace, resting his head on her chest. Yuuri hadn’t realized that tears were streaming down his face until they were staining his mother’s blue work apron. As another sob wracked his body, his mother simply held on tight to him as he shook with fury and grief that his classmates and his peers would never understand him. He had Yuu-chan and Takeshi, but they were probably only friends with him because he also skated with them. If he stopped skating or stopped dancing...then would they still want to be friends with him?

Above all, Yuuri feared that he would stay like this; friendless and unlikeable. And that when his soulmate finally meets him...they would be disappointed in plain, old, crybaby Yuuri.

::x::

All the way until lunchtime the next day, what Yakov had said to him previously was weighing heavily on Victor’s mind.

Instead of confronting his coach, Victor decided to take another run-through his program. The twinge on his wrist was bothering him, like an unscratchable itch, but every time he glanced at it, all he saw was unblemished skin. The whole practice section, he’d been on and off, distracted by possibility and doubt. Whenever he got a rest break, he would lean against the boards and stare off into the distance, picking at his wrist absentmindedly with his long fingernails until Yakov yelled at him to get moving on another part of the program.

Half an hour into the practice session, Yakov gestured for him to pack up and go home. Victor, normally, would be peeved at the curt dismissal, but even Victor himself recognized that he wasn’t going to get much more out of this session. His mind was all over the place, and there was an undercurrent of fear that was weaving through his thoughts. _What if I’m delusional, and Yakov is right?_ What if Victor had imagined the whole thing, and just had some kind of...memory issue?

And what if Victor’s soulmate didn’t exist?

That thought hurt more than anything. Most people don’t experience the joy of having soulmates, of switching bodies, of sharing emotions. And Victor is one of the lucky few that do get to experience it. But somehow, reverting back to a normal lifestyle, writing everything off as a strange longing and obsession...all that hurt Victor. He didn’t want to disappoint himself and hope too much, but he didn’t want to stop believing either.

“Vitya, get off the ice!” Yakov was yelling again. “Go home if you’re going to be useless!”

“Yes, coach,” Victor forced out a laugh. “I’m going home to play video games! A free break!”

“You better get off your lazy ass next session or I will…”

The rest of Yakov’s rant is drowned out as Victor decides to lazily toss himself into a triple axel, more out of spite than any real resolve to practice his form. As a result, the height he gained was sloppy and he knew instinctively, even before his foot left the ice, that he had leapt into his jump wrong.

Too late, he realized he wasn’t going to catch himself on the ice properly. His left skate dug into the ice and his right foot swung wildly upwards and he stumbles, his hand coming forward to steady himself and, instead of feeling the chill of the ice, catching on the sharp of his own blade.

::x::

Yuuri was shoved from behind.

He stumbled forward but thankfully didn’t fall. With his back to the wall, he tried inching past his tormentors, all three of whom seemed to tower over him, even though they were in his grade.

“What do you want?” Yuuri said, mustering his courage. His voice trembled, just a little, and he clenched his fist.

“Hey-o, lame-o,” The bullies sang happily. “What are you doing, crybaby Yuuri? Coming back from your pretty pink dance class?”

Yuuri had his gym bag slung over his shoulder, so there was no way he could deny it. Instead, he shrunk into himself and clutched his bag closer to his stomach. “What do you guys _want_ from me?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” One of them stepped forward and held out his hand. “But you know what, why don’t you show us your ballet dress?”

“It’s not a dress.” Yuuri sniped back, and one of them shoved him again. Yuuri felt his back hit the brick wall, and the horrendous feeling of helplessness that overwhelmed him then stopped him from saying anything else. He lapsed into a terrified silence, still clutching his gym bag and refusing to move.

“But it’s pink, right? Why don’t you show us and put it on?” The bullies were closing in on him still, and he didn’t like the gleam in their eyes. Yuuri’s gaze flickered as he looked for any way out of this situation. The bullies weren’t leaving any noticeable gaps between them, so he couldn’t just duck his head and run blindly, hoping he could outrun them. Takeshi and Yuu-chan usually walked home with him, but tonight of all nights they were still at the ice rink tonight because Takeshi’s parents had come in to watch them practice, and Yuuri had gone off to Minako’s studio alone.

But Yuuri sure as hell isn’t going to change into his ballet clothes in front of them, even though it was just a black t-shirt and sweats. Doing what they said would be giving up.

“What are you waiting for, Yuuri?” One of them brought a hand up to push him again and Yuuri took his chance with the opening.

Yuuri rushed forward with a cry, twisting under the arm of his attacker and elbowing another to the side and he could see the empty stretch of road ahead of him. His stride lengthened and he prepared to put on an extra burst of speed to get _away, away, away!_ When suddenly someone’s foot came slamming into his back and he was thrown forward. The ground rushed up to meet him and Yuuri threw his hands forward to break his fall, too late seeing that there were glass shards of a broken beer bottle littering the street in front of him.

He felt something sharp dig into his palm and when he opened his eyes, he’d fallen onto ice.

::x::

The cut wouldn’t stop bleeding, but in the dim light, Victor could hardly find a first aid kit, let alone _see_ the wound properly.

There was laughing coming from behind him, but not the joyous, light-hearted snickering that he was used to hearing from Mila. Stumbling to his feet, Victor groaned as pain throbbed through the palm of his hand-

 _His hand?_ His hand looked different now, shorter and stubbier fingers. Shorter fingernails too, but clean and rounded. Callouses in what he remembered to be smooth skin. The only familiar thing is the cut, a long red welt that ran from the base of his thumb all the way nearly to his wrist; shallow but painful to the touch. He clenched his hand and let out a soft hiss.

Next to him was a puppy-print bag. It was cute, and would be bright and cheery if it didn’t look like it’d been raked through the mud.

“Oi,” One of the people in front of him kicked him in the shin and Victor took a few steps back, frowning.

The group of people in front of him stood in a corny ‘villain’s formation’, the one in front obviously the little ringleader of the gang. They looked years younger than Victor himself was...around ten years old to his fourteen, and yet they towered over him inexplicably.

 _A soulmate switch?_ Victor’s heart thudded with excitement.

The people in front of him were snarling something at him in a foreign language. Victor’s ears drank it in and he couldn’t stop himself from grinning and asking:

“Where am I? Who are you guys?”

The three kids lapsed into silence, so Victor leaned forward, still smiling. In what little English he knew, Victor asked:

“My name Victor! Where I am?”

The ringleader screamed something ugly at him and stepped forward to slap him, but Victor’s reflexes were fast. He’d spent years dodging amateurs on crowded rinks, after all. It was easy for him to twist out of reach and dance backwards, grabbing the puppy-print bag out of instinct. Quickly, he reassessed the situation and read the atmosphere and came to the conclusion that if this really was a soul switch, and he was in his soulmate’s body…

Then these people were bullying _his soulmate._

::x::

Yakov ran a hand through his rapidly thinning hair as not-Victor sat hunched in front of him, sobbing his eyes out.

Everything had happened fast. Vitya had gotten cut while skating, _that idiot boy_ , and Yakov had to stomp out onto the ice to check up on him. At first, Victor had just sat there, strangely quiet, as his injured hand lay, palm-down, on the ice. Yakov had tried screaming at him: “Vitya, you’re going to dirty the ice! Lift your hand, boy!”

But Victor had not responded. Eventually, Yakov had knelt and yanked the boy’s hand upwards himself to inspect the cut. It was shallow but long, and ran from the base of Victor’s thumb all the way to near where his wrist started, an angry red against the pale of Victor’s skin.

“Next time watch your jump, you useless boy.” Yakov snarled, before pulling Victor to his feet.

The boy had gotten up with no retort and no complaint and before Yakov knew it, Victor was turning his face up towards him and Yakov found himself staring into a pair of brown eyes.

 _But-_ was about as far as Yakov’s brain thought, before his practical side took over and Yakov was pulling the not-Victor off ice and sitting him on one of the benches. The boy...or whoever it was trapped inside Victor’s body at the moment, seemed to be in shock, and definitely did _not_ understand whatever Yakov was trying to tell him. Instead, Yakov called in the medics and dismissed Mila and Georgi, who were _not_ skating and instead crowding by to get a look at all the commotion. After chasing the other troublesome kids off the ice, Yakov stood by stonily as they gave Victor’s hand another cursory check-up, eventually pronouncing him healthy and wrapping it tightly in cleaned bandages.

 _What now,_ Yakov thought, as the not-Victor sat there and stared blankly back at him.

And then the not-Victor started bawling.  

::x::

“I want to go home,” Yuuri sobbed loudly into his sleeve. “Let me go home!”

In front of him, a grumpy-looking old man was grumbling something, but Yuuri couldn’t understand a word of what was coming out of his mouth. Full-blown panic was now gripping his mind and arresting his heart, and Yuuri was vaguely aware that he was hyperventilating a little. The man in front of him was looking more and more spooked with every passing second, and it wasn’t a friendly look. Yuuri was quickly reaching the point where he’d have to decide whether he’d like to throw up or not, even if it was just as some kind of freakish defense mechanism.

Strangely, there was a deep-settled relief to this situation too, knowing that he was probably in a place so far away from his bullies that they couldn’t reach him. At least for however long _this_ thing lasted.

“Mom….Dad...Mari…” Yuuri sniffled a little more.

“Do you speak English?” The man asked, voice gruff.

‘English’ was the only word that Yuuri coherently got out of that sentence, but it was a start, at least. He shook his head ‘no’, but mumbled: “English no good.”

His only answer was another sigh. When the man made no move to hit him as his bullies had done, Yuuri slowly lowered his arm and, still hiccuping, braved a look around.

He was sitting in the stands of a large ice rink. A very large ice rink. It was bigger than the Hasetsu Ice Castle by almost two or three times, and the smooth ice seemed to stretch endlessly before him. Yuuri’s eyes widened. He wondered what it would be like to skate in that rink; how long it would take him to do one lap, or how many jumps he could practice before he would have to stop in fear of hitting the boards on the other side. And it was _cold_ in here in a way that he wasn’t really used to back at home, even in Hasetsu’s coldest winters; a kind of bones deep chill that was alien and familiar to him all at once.

He remembered, perhaps, a year ago or so...the feeling of his heart soaring and his mood rising and dipping and the nerves tingling in his body, and he wondered if it had something, _anything_ at all to do with this strange yet recognizable place.

“What’s your name, boy,” The man in front of him spoke, bringing him out of his reverie. The old man pointed to Yuuri and repeated his question. “What’s your name?”

“Katsuki Yuuri,” Yuuri replied hesitantly. The man nodded, pleased, and then pointed to himself.

“My name is Yakov.” It was hard to make out underneath the thick foreign accent, but Yuuri tried his best anyway, pointing to the man and repeating:

“Sack of?”

“No,” The man groaned irritably. “Yakov.”

“Yuck of.” Yuuri enunciated carefully, ears burning as he no-doubt mangled the word with his own Japanese accent.

“...close enough.” Yuck-of said, with a defeatist look on his face. He stood up and brushed some ice off his pants, before holding his hand out to Yuuri.

“Let’s go get something warm to eat.”

Yuuri held out his hand and caught sight of the bandages wrapped around his fingers.

“Arigato, Yuck-of,” Yuuri said quietly, and Yuck-of seemed at least a little bit more content with that.

::x::

Two loud kids and two solemn adults eventually stumbled upon the aftermath of Victor’s alleyway brawl.

There was a lot of fussing and hugging and tutting of tongues. The three bullies, cowering in the corner of the alley ever since Victor had finished his anger-fueled rampage, had been given a stern talking-to and sent scampering off on their way. Victor himself had been picked up and dusted off and thoroughly examined under the watchful eye of the two adults before being marched home and handed off to a worried looking plump woman who immediately took his hand and led him through the doorway and into a home he’d never been in before.

Victor stepped into the dip near the doorway and made to step up the ledge and onto the wooden corridor before the woman stopped him with a gentle pull on his arm.

Victor looked at her and caught the tail-end of a flicker of surprise that passed through her face. But she composed herself quickly and gestured to his shoes, and then to a neatly kept shoe-rack just off to the right of him.

“Oh, shoes off,” Victor affirmed quietly, still speaking in English. Obediently, he slipped off his shoes, ignoring the bruises and twinges he felt in his limbs, and stacked them neatly next to all the others on the shoe rack.

Only then was he allowed onto the spotless wooden floorboards. Curious now because _this must be my soulmate’s home_ , Victor bounded happily after the woman as she led him deeper into the house.

::x::

Hiroko knew immediately that it wasn’t her Yuuri that had returned home that night. She hadn’t even had to look at the blue eyes to confirm it, though it was at once calming and worrying to see that she was right, once Yuuri’s soulmate had turned to look at her and she found herself looking into a pair of bright blue eyes.

Whoever it was, they were polite and obedient and spoke a little English. Hiroko’s English was rudimentary at best, though she’d started practicing more conversationalist phrases in both English and Russian once she found out that Yuuri’s soulmate had the slight possibility of being from Russia. Still, embarrassment kept her from opening her mouth until she’d seated her son’s soulmate at the family’s dining table and had laid dinner out in front of them; Yuuri’s favorite, a steaming bowl of katsudon.

“Eat,” She said simply, when those questioning blue eyes found her gaze again.

“Vkusno!” Yuuri’s soulmate cried upon taking the first bite of the food. Hiroko may not have recognized the word, but she understood a tone of praise no matter what language, and the fact that Yuuri’s soulmate is sitting in her home, enjoying her food, is enough to bring a pleased smile to her face. And with it, buoyed by the rising pleasure and courage and a fair amount of curiosity she got from this fated second meeting with her son’s soulmate, she slipped into the seat across from them instead of making herself scarce in the kitchen.

“I am Katsuki Yuuri’s mother, Katsuki Hiroko.” She said, in English.

Yuuri’s soulmate all but dropped their chopsticks out of surprise and delight.

“English okay!?” They exclaimed.

“Okay,” Hiroko replied, smiling.

“My name Victor! Victor Nikiforov!” Yuuri’s soulmate pressed a hand proudly to their chest.

“Hello Victor,” Hiroko said.

“Hello!” Victor replied back happily, waving his hands. “My...” Victor trailed off uncertainly and patted himself, tilting his head adorably. “Not mine,” He said carefully, in reference to his current body. “But my...friend’s….?”

“Yuuri,” Hiroko repeated, and gestured to the sweater that Yuuri’s body had on currently, the one with the big ‘Y’ that she had knitted for him last winter.

“Yuuri,” Victor breathed, reverently, grinning stupidly and smoothing his hand along the ‘Y’ printed on his chest. “Yuuri.”

“When will switch back?” Hiroko asked.

Victor shrugged, turning his attention back to his food, although still, once in a while, glancing down at the sweater as if convincing himself that it was still there.

“Okay,” Hiroko sat back, withholding the rest of the questions. It would be rude to pry, she reasoned. And most of the information about Victor, she wanted Yuuri to find out first. She wanted her son to set the pace of this strange yet exhilarating start of a new friendship.

“If switch, can I leave word?” Victor asked.

“Okay,” Hiroko replied easily.

“Um...note.” Victor spoke in a beautiful lilting pronunciation, even when saying words he wasn’t certain of. There was a confidence to the way Victor carried himself that Hiroko found strange yet content to see expressed through Yuuri’s body. Her son, as he matured, will probably carry himself with such an easy, friendly confidence, one day.

“A note to Yuuri.” Victor was saying.

“Of course,” Hiroko laughed. “Go ahead. What would you like to write?”

“Victor Nikiforov,” Victor replied instantly. “Want Yuuri know my name.”

“Alright.” Hiroko got up to grab a marker from the front desk. When she came back into the dining room, she found Victor wolfing down the rest of the katsudon.

“Vkusno,” He exclaimed again. “Good and yummy!”

“I’m happy,” Hiroko smiled. “Where do you want to write the note?”

“Here,” Victor said, pointing to the back of the uninjured hand.

Hiroko handed the marker over and watched as Victor scribbled something in the Russian language and then sat there, staring at it and pondering a little. Then he looked up at her again.

“Please write Victor Nikiforov? In Yuuri language?”

Hiroko laughed and reached for the marker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still alive, I promise! This semester is just kicking my butt.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who left kudos, commented or bookmarked my work. Every little response I get to this fic absolutely makes my day! You guys are the most amazing readers and I'm super lucky to have you all <3 
> 
> I've got a few ideas ready for the next chapter, so the next update will be hopefully speedier!


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